Gender awareness and vocabulary

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 693.

A number of vocabulary changes are being introduced as a result of the feminist movement and heightened awareness of the sexist nature of some English vocabulary. David Crystal in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language writes:

Attention has been focused on the replace­ment of `male' words with a generic meaning by neutral items - chairman, for example, becoming chair or chairperson (though not without controversy) or salesman becoming sales assistant. In certain cases, such as job descriptions, use of sexually neutral language has become a legal require­ment. There is continuing debate between extremists and moderates as to how far such revisions should go - whether they should affect traditional idioms such as man in the street (a typical person; could be replaced by person in the street) and Neanderthal Man (primitive people who lived in Europe and Asia 2.5 to 3 million years ago), or apply to parts of words where the male meaning of man is no longer dominant such as manhandle (handle roughly, using force) and woman. The vocabulary of marital status has also been affected with the introduction of ­Ms as a neutral alternative to Miss or Mrs.

Ex.4.10. Answer these questions about the text.

1) Why do you think there have been attempts to introduce non-sexist language of the kind described by David Crystal?

2) How would you explain this expression: male words with a generic meaning?

3) Why do you think there might have been controversy about attempts to change the word chairman?

4) What do more extreme advocates of making English sexually neutral want to do that is unacceptable to the moderates?

5) Why was Ms introduced and why is it useful?

Here are some examples of non-sexist variations of vocabulary: